Conventional articles, such as webs and associated products, have been prepared by forming the web and then cutting away selected portions to form desired shapes and contours at the opposed, lateral sides of the web. Other techniques have included cutting a sheet into two elongated webs so that one edge of each web is straight and the other edge has alternating concave and convex portions. The webs have been affixed to each other or to a water-impervious backing sheet so that the straight edge portions thereof face each other and the alternating concave-convex portions face outwardly.
In further techniques, a concave-convex cutting line has been applied repetitively in a periodical way in the longitudinal direction of a continuous first web to form first and second partial webs. The first partial web has been offset with respect to the second partial web in the longitudinal direction by a prescribed interval so that the concave edges and the convex edges of the first and second partial webs are positioned opposite to and aligned with each. A continuous second web has been used to connect the outside edges opposite to the aligned concave and convex edge portions of the first and second partial webs, and the second web is bonded with the outside edges of the partial webs to form a composite web. Following the bonding, the first and second partial webs of the composite web have been spread apart.
Conventional techniques, such as those described above, have not been able to produce a shaped article having desired contours at sufficiently high speeds and at a sufficient reduction in the amount of wasted of material. In particular, the conventional techniques have been limited to a side contour, repeat pattern in which each individual pattern is longitudinally symmetrical. As a result, the conventional techniques have been unable to efficiently produce a shaped article having side contours with a multi-segment repeating pattern in which the pattern includes two or more different pattern-segments. As a result, the conventional techniques have not been sufficiently able to efficiently produce individual shaped articles which are non-symmetric along their longitudinal, lengthwise directions.